Conventionally, an information provision method called “recommendation” has been in use. Through the recommendation, items and privileges that have high levels of relevance to an item being browsed by a user and items bought by the user are introduced. For example, when the user has accessed and browsed a certain item, information such as “Those who purchased this item also purchased the following items: . . . ” is introduced to the user.
For another example of the recommendation, a registered member website affiliated with a shopping mall website is explained also. A user registered for this membership website is allowed to access the shopping mall website directly and not through the membership website. However, when using a service from the shopping mall website after having accessed this website through the membership website, the user is granted an opportunity to receive a privilege corresponding to the usage history of the user.
For example, when a user registered for the membership website has accessed the membership website, information such as “the shopping mall website A is selling the item B at 3% discount” is introduced to the user. Then, accessing the shopping mall website A through this information enables the user to receive a privilege to buy the item B at a 3% discount price. Further, in a case where the user has ever used the shopping mall website A through the membership website, information on a higher discount rate for the item B is introduced to the user, for example.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2002-041455
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2011-060022
However, one problem with the above-described related technique has been that the user might miss an opportunity to receive a privilege.
Specifically, even in case of a user registered for the membership website, information such as “the shopping mall website A is selling the item B at 3% discount” is not introduced to the user when the user has accessed the shopping mall website A directly and not through the membership website. Further, this user has had no chance to know that having visited the website A through the membership website would have provided the user with an opportunity to receive a privilege.